1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for acquiring information inherent to an apparatus using an image pickup element, and remotely controlling a desired apparatus based on the acquired information inherent to the apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there have been developed various techniques for simply controlling a desired apparatus among plural apparatuses using a single controller. For example, with Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-284168, a physical topology map describing the physical arrangement of plural apparatuses is accumulated beforehand in a memory within a remote controller, and the user manipulates a directional button of the remote controller according to the apparent arrangement. The remote controller selects a desired apparatus by pursuing or referring to the physical topology map according to the input of the directional button. Thereby, the user can intuitively select the desired apparatus quickly. The remote controller has a map creation part for automatically collecting the physical arrangement information of apparatuses required to create the physical topology map using the radio or network characteristics.
Also, according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-291072, a server apparatus for storing the remote control operation information corresponding to each of the remote control object apparatuses is provided, in which a portable remote control terminal has a transmitting part for transmitting the remote control operation information request data requesting the remote control operation information corresponding to the remote control operation object apparatus selected beforehand via radio communication device or a public communication line for the server apparatus, and the server apparatus transmits, to the portable remote control terminal, the remote control operation information corresponding to the remote control operation object apparatus selected based on the remote control operation information request data.
Also, according to a Non-Patent Document “Proposal for home information appliance multi remote control “Opto navigation” system using an ID reception CMOS image sensor of low power consumption having a fast reading function for partial area” (Video information media institution journal, Vol. 59, No. 12, pp. 1830-1840 (2005)), ID is received from an information home appliance, while picking up the normal image in real time, using a custom image sensor mounted on a portable telephone. The received ID is superimposed on the picked up background image and displayed on a display screen. The user can perform the operation while viewing the object apparatus on the display screen.